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Oregon City is south of Portland. Between it and Portland is an area with a bad rep known as The Clack. So driving further south and finding a cute area with a particular aesthetic was a very pleasant surprise.
To use a bathroom, I stopped for tea in a place that sold these cross-stich kits:
And lots of local artist made items like stickers and pins.
I knew the area has some decaying industrial buildings. I've seen pictures and assumed that getting them required some sneaking. I'd seen some images removed from the local subreddit to not encourage that sort of thing. Still, I figured I'd get the lay of the land.
Oh, was I wrong. So wrong. The original decaying industrial center of the city is on display. There is a scenic walk with interpretive signs if you want to stroll around and admire their de-commissioned mills. You can't enter, both for safety reasons and because it's not all defunct. One of the paper mills is active. The dam is one of the oldest power plants still in use today and freight trains go through.
They seriously have the same style of interpretive signs used in this state for scenic views of mountain ranges. Instead of 'Three Sisters' or 'Hood' it's 'oldest mill in Oregon' and 'original wool mill.' Why have I not been to this town that treats it's urban decay like a protected scenic area and the big downtown church as this over the door:
It's like ten minutes south of the giant mall I sometimes go to because, well, sometimes a giant mall is just convenient.
I haven't sorted all my pictures and I think I am going to do a couple of trips before I put up a gallery, but I can't rave that much and not post anything, so here is a quick grab:
I have some good pictures, but I am going to do at least one more shoot down there before making a gallery. There are a few specific shots that occurred to me later. I also want to shoot the church / cemetery and other places away from the scenic vista. The decay is visually busy and I need to take carefully composed shots. Also, due to size and waterfall mist it's hard to get clear shots of parts of it. I need to go early on a brutally cold day to get some of the shots I want as clear as I want them.
I never went there because I only heard bad things about it. People talk down that it's main downtown feature is an elevator between the lower and upper parts of the city. It's like ... why talk down a way to make a very, very steep city accessible? The stairs are brutal. I know because I also took the stairs. The elevator is how one gets to the upper viewpoint area. The elevator is awesome! I should know by now that if people are obsessively talking something down online, I should make a beeline for it. I feel super dumb for never having gone down there before. I'd even planned to a few days, but put it off because I thought it would be hard to get good shots there. It's a photography playground.
( One more shot, of a pedestrian walkway. )
To use a bathroom, I stopped for tea in a place that sold these cross-stich kits:
And lots of local artist made items like stickers and pins.
I knew the area has some decaying industrial buildings. I've seen pictures and assumed that getting them required some sneaking. I'd seen some images removed from the local subreddit to not encourage that sort of thing. Still, I figured I'd get the lay of the land.
Oh, was I wrong. So wrong. The original decaying industrial center of the city is on display. There is a scenic walk with interpretive signs if you want to stroll around and admire their de-commissioned mills. You can't enter, both for safety reasons and because it's not all defunct. One of the paper mills is active. The dam is one of the oldest power plants still in use today and freight trains go through.
They seriously have the same style of interpretive signs used in this state for scenic views of mountain ranges. Instead of 'Three Sisters' or 'Hood' it's 'oldest mill in Oregon' and 'original wool mill.' Why have I not been to this town that treats it's urban decay like a protected scenic area and the big downtown church as this over the door:
It's like ten minutes south of the giant mall I sometimes go to because, well, sometimes a giant mall is just convenient.
I haven't sorted all my pictures and I think I am going to do a couple of trips before I put up a gallery, but I can't rave that much and not post anything, so here is a quick grab:
I have some good pictures, but I am going to do at least one more shoot down there before making a gallery. There are a few specific shots that occurred to me later. I also want to shoot the church / cemetery and other places away from the scenic vista. The decay is visually busy and I need to take carefully composed shots. Also, due to size and waterfall mist it's hard to get clear shots of parts of it. I need to go early on a brutally cold day to get some of the shots I want as clear as I want them.
I never went there because I only heard bad things about it. People talk down that it's main downtown feature is an elevator between the lower and upper parts of the city. It's like ... why talk down a way to make a very, very steep city accessible? The stairs are brutal. I know because I also took the stairs. The elevator is how one gets to the upper viewpoint area. The elevator is awesome! I should know by now that if people are obsessively talking something down online, I should make a beeline for it. I feel super dumb for never having gone down there before. I'd even planned to a few days, but put it off because I thought it would be hard to get good shots there. It's a photography playground.
( One more shot, of a pedestrian walkway. )
